Prickly Pears
by Supred
Summary: If people thought that Supernova could be replaced by The Flash, they were sorely mistaken. Santana Lopez was sick of taking the background roles, she was going to be the star. And if being the star meant fighting crime,e and defending "truth, justice and the American way", so be it. It's a good thing she's secretly an alien. Super powers really help in this line of work.


Sin-Va and Tilrira Sin-Va were scientists on Krypton, they studied the artifact known as Rao's Essence. It was an energy encased in a glass sphere. The Essence was discovered at the beginning of Krypton's history. It conducted the power of stars and suns and converted the energy into power that could be harnessed in technology.

The artifact was one of the most important relics Krypton had. Kryptonians believed that Rao gifted the essence to them as thanks for their devotion. The Essence powered and controlled almost everything on Krypton.

Despite the importance of Rao's Essence, Kryptonians didn't truly understand it's powers. This is because it attacked those who held it. It could not be touched. Sin-Va and Tilrira had to do all their testing from a distance with machinery.

Through their experiments, the couple discovered that The Essence could be harnessed by what it was held in, theoretically it could be inserted into a person to see what it was capable of. Instead of wasting time testing on animals, Sin-Va decided that they would inject their only daughter Santana with the substance. They would be able to study and control their daughter unlike other subjects.

Santana was only 8 when she was tied down and had a large needle pushed into her neck. She couldn't remember much of the event other than the colour orange and burning. She burned for three days. The pain was never ending, her parents monitored her and patiently waited.

Once she woke, it quickly became apparent that The Essence had changed Santana's biology. She was no longer completely Kryptonian. Her cells did not behave the same. Santana could also blast her parents away from her when enraged. When she wanted something, the object would fly towards her. Tilrira and Sin-Va were fascinted and conducted many experiments over the next two years. Until she was 10, Santana was not allowed to leave their home. She was given an education by her parents.

Eventually, what Sin-Va and Tilrira had done was discovered by the Council of Krypton. They had desecrated a sacred relic and mutated their daughter. What the couple had done was considered despicable and sacreligious. Sin-Va and Tilrira were sent to The Phantom Zone, Santana was stripped of her family name, The House of Va, had her powers locked away with an anklet and exiled. She was sent straight to Earth as a child who could not speak any of the languages known by the inhabitants of the planet. The child was lucky that she was found and sent to an orphanage.

Santana did not enjoy the Star City Orphanage for Girls, she couldn't understand most of what the other girls were saying not only the language barriers but the general interests they had. Santana was Kryptonian and homeschooled by scientists, this left her with a higher intelligence than other kids and little to no social skills. She often lashed out at the orphans and the nuns that ran the home. Everyone avoided her, the girls learned not to bully her after she punched a girl for laughing at her accent. Sally was sent to the hospital with a broken jaw and Santana was punished severely.

She also seemed to have secret superpowers. Santana had super strength, speed, sight and hearing, Her eyes could shoot lasers and she could freeze things with her breath. Overall, life was hard on Earth and she had no one to help her with these new powers.

It was a huge surprise to everyone when Robert and Moira Queen decided to adopt Santana when she was 11 in 2002, they had decided that adopting a child would be good for publicity. Thea practically imprinted on Santana when they met, no matter how much Santana tried to make the 7-year-old leave her alone, she kept coming back for more. Thea wouldn't allow them to leave with anyone other than Santana, she had the largest tantrum anyone in the family can remember to this day about it.

Santana settled into the family quite well, Robert helped her with her language issues and education, she confided her powers to her new father who helped her control and hide them from everyone. Thea caught her up with everything to do with pop culture and Oliver helped her open up to people and develop socially, of course he didn't have the best influence upon her, often finding her anger and insults towards people she didn't like amusing. However, no matter what she tried, Moira stayed cold towards Santana.

Santana started going through puberty at age 12. She was hormonal and insecure and angry all the time. She got into many physical fights with other kids and arguments with her parents became incredibly frequent. The Queens got to the end of their rope when in the middle of an argument with Moira, Santana accidentally singed her hair with her heart vision. The parents knew that they had to control Santana and protect Oliver and Thea. They sent 14-year-old Santana to Lima, Ohio to live with some old partners of Queen Consolidated, Diego and Maribel Lopez. The Lopez's were informed of her situation and forced to sign NDAs. Santana took their last name and attended McKinley High, she quickly rose to popularity on the Cheerios and took out her anger and insecurities upon others through bullying and promiscuous behaviour.

Santana met her life long friends on the Cheerios, Quinn Fabray and Brittany Pierce, together they formed The Unholy Trinity.

The Unholy Trinity joined Glee Club when they were 15 as spies for their Cheerio coach, Sue Sylvester. Santana was surprised at how much she enjoyed performing, how she felt free to express her feelings this way. Later that year Santana started a sexual relationship with Brittany but struggled to admit her sexuality. Secretly, she knew that she was bisexual but was scared to tell anyone and stayed in the closet. Santana was too used to the people close to her rejecting her due to things she could not completely control. It was at this age she discovered the destruction of Krypton due to an emergency broadcast she was able to discover when trying to find a way to communicate with the planet for a pardon.

Santana grieved privately for a very long time. She continued her life and fell in love with Brittany but could never let go of the death of her planet and people. She knew that she would never be able to understand why she had powers or what she could do about it.

When they were 16, Brittany and Santana entered a semi-secret relationship. Their Glee club knew about their relationship but no one else did. Finn Hudson accidentally forced her out of the closet that year, she had to come out to her adoptive family that Summer, which surprisingly went well for her. The Queens even asked to meet Brittany, unfortunately Oliver and Robert went missing that year which meant that Santana's grieving became much more intense and the plans for Brittany to meet the Queens fell through.

16-year-old Santana Lopez met 18-year-old Barry Allen during the feud between The New DIrections and The Warblers. Barry started the rivalry by "stealing" the New Directions' idea about performing Michael Jackson at Regionals. Their various encounters escalated their animosity towards each other as they insulted and argued. Later, Barry slushied Blaine with rock salt, Santana was determined to get revenge for her friend and confronted Barry at Dalton Academy. The two performed a duet together, and she was able to get him admitting to tampering with the slushie on tape. He then slushied Santana with a regular slushie. At New Directions practice later that day, Santana told the glee club that she recorded Barry admitting there was rock salt in the slushie that damaged Blaine's eye. She was all set to give the tape to the police so he got taken to a juvenile detention center. Kurt told Santana that it was a stupid idea and that if Michael Jackson went after all the haters then he wouldn't have had time to produce all his music. Later, Santana gave the tape to Barry after the New Directions perform _Black or White_. Neither Santana or Barry let go of their mutual contempt and loathing towards each other.

Two years later, Santana graduated from McKinley High with a cheerleading scholarship to the University of Louisville. After the first semester, she decided to transfer to Columbia and study law. She also decided to move straight in with her friends Rachdl Berry and Kurt Hummel.

Santana met Caitlin Snow at Columbia, the older girl was studying biological sciences and bumped into Santana at the library, they had a strange friendship, Caitlin's professional and frosty demeanor made Santana work harder at her studies and her insults didn't seem to affect her. Santana helped Caitlin relax but also stand up for herself. The two became very close.

When she was 20, Santana proposed to Brittany in front of their friends but they broke up a year later, they weren't travelling on the same path towards their futures and neither wanted to give up their dreams.

When Oliver returned when she was 21, Santana moved back to Starling City not only to reunite with her brother but to distract herself from the heartbreak of her breakup. She quickly discovered Oliver's secret identity, having nothing to do but laze around at home lead her to eavesdropping and spying on her changed brother. She joined Team Arrow as back up, she never took on a vigilante role or had a codename. Oliver taught her physical combat skills and helped her improve and control her super powers.

After her girlfriend Dani was killed by a mugger, Santana decided to move to Central City. She got a job as a paralegal and settled into the mundane life, even reuniting with Caitlin.


End file.
